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Topic: A few Q's from a new member! (Read 3198 times)

I've been lurking, reading, and printing dough recipes for a while now. I don't have a scale, so I don't measure my ingredients by weight, so I can't be of much help on the hydration percentages etc. right now. I will be getting a digital scale in the near future, so I can get this licked! Anyway, I made a batch of the Lehmann NY dough from this website. I'm a little confused about the kneading, making balls, forming etc. When I pull dough from the fridge, do I knead it again before making the dough balls and letting it rise for another 2 hours? Once the 2 hours is up do I shape or knead again? If I knead again do I let it relax again before I shape? It seems the dough is pretty soft and pliable before I knead after rising, but then it stiffens up after. I'm sure these are true beginner q's, but that's what I am. I've turned out some good pizza's. Haven't had any complaints, and lots of compliments, but see from this website, there's a lot more to it than I've been doing.

My dough came out a little tough last nite, and I had a hard time shaping it, as it didn't want to stretch as much as I'd like. I used 4 cups of Hi-gluten flour, 1.5 cups water, tsp salt, 1 pack IDY, TBS olive oil. I put the flour & yeast into my Cuisinart processor with the dough blade (on Dough setting) & pulsed it to incorporate. Then I pulsed in the water until it formed a ball. Then I pulsed in the salt and then the oil. After that I put it in an oiled bowl and covered with plastic wrap & put it in the fridge for 24 hours. When I pulled it out, I kneaded it and cut into 2 balls. I put those in seperate bowls on the counter and covered in plastic wrap for about 5 hours. (with a damp paper towel on top) The dough was very airy when I pulled it from the bowl. I punched it down and tried to stretch & throw it, but it didn't want to give? I know it's probably not enough info, but any help/guidance will be appreciated.

Patrick is right. You shouldn't re-knead or re-ball the dough when it comes out of the refrigerator since that will cause the gluten structure to become disoriented and overly elastic and difficult to work with. And you shouldn't need more than about 1 1/2-2 hours of warm-up time before shaping and stretching the dough. Patrick is also right about your use of yeast. One packet of IDY comes to over 1% of the weight of flour, by my estimate. That is far more than you need for a cold fermented dough.

Thank you both for the quick replies! Just to further understand, after I pull the dough from the fridge and let it get to room temp I have up to 4 hours to use.

"Once the dough reaches the desired temperature, it can be safely used for 3 to 4 hours thereafter in most cases without overfermenting. I usually turn on the oven about an hour before I think the dough will be ready to shape and stretch into a dough round ("skin")."

And, to shape & stretch, I start with the ball without kneading.

"To shape and stretch the dough in preparation for dressing and baking, I gently flatten the dough using my fingers while avoiding flattening the outer edge which is to become the rim or forcing the gases out of the dough. Once the dough round is around 10 inches in diameter, I lift it and, draping it over my closed fists, stretch it out to its final diameter (12 inches in your case) while "flicking" the dough round by one-quarter turns. I often turn the dough over and repeat these steps. I try to work more toward the outer edges so that thin spots don't form near the center."

Pete the links were very helpful

I know this may be out of bounds, but if 1 packet of yeast is too much, would you recommend 1/2 that? If not, more or less? What are the signs of too much yeast?

Your understanding of the window of use of the dough is essentially correct. However, it is not necessary to get the dough to room temperature before using, since room temperature can be too high at times (e.g., in the middle of summer). You should bring the dough out to room temperature for about 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours. In the winter, the actual time might be longer and in the summer it might be shorter. Once the dough is at the right temperature, it is usable for another few hours. A dough made of high-gluten flour will have a longer usable window than one made with, say, all-purpose flour. Unless you use a lot of yeast, you can perhaps even stretch out the window longer than 4 or 5 hours.

I usually determine how much yeast to use based on when I want to use the dough. If I want to use the dough sooner rather than later, I will often use more yeast than if I want to use the dough later rather than sooner. In your case, since you used the dough after 24 hours, rather than, say, three or four days, there was little harm done. You just wasted some yeast. If you had let the dough go out to several days, it might have overfermented and not performed as well. For a cold fermented dough that is to be used several days after making, you don't really need much yeast. It can be less than 0.25% (for IDY) by weight of flour, depending on the time of year. However, when small amounts of yeast are used, you want to be sure that you get the finished dough temperature to around 80 degrees F. The best way to do this is to adjust the water temperature. When using a food processor to make dough, I usually use cold water to be sure that the dough doesn't overheat and get above 80 degrees F, and I try to use the pulse feature as much as possible.

If too much yeast is used for the given circumstances, the dough can become very gassy and rise too fast and result in a weakened gluten structure. The dough may also collapse if not used in time and yield a crust with poor structure. I estimate that you used yeast at around 1.3% of the weight of flour. That is an amount that might be used to make a dough that is ready to use within about 2-4 hours (at room temperature). In your case, you bought more time because you put the dough in the refrigerator, which slowed down the activity of the yeast.

The key to success with making pizza dough is to master the relationship between amount of yeast and the finished dough temperature. There are other factors involved, like hydration and salt levels, but yeast quantity and dough temperature are the two biggest factors.

It seems like everyone including myself have been quite happy with MyWeigh 7001 which is around $35 - $40 including shipping - see "Old Will Knot" (http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/ or eBay) I think his ebay auctions are cheaper than his website.

It seems like everyone including myself have been quite happy with MyWeigh 7001 which is around $35 - $40 including shipping - see "Old Will Knot" (http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/ or eBay) I think his ebay auctions are cheaper than his website.

I don't like the MyWeigh 7001. The buttons are very unresponsive and the readings often start fluctuating in the middle of weighing something. Looking for a higher quality scale. This is my second cheap digital scale.

I don't like the MyWeigh 7001. The buttons are very unresponsive and the readings often start fluctuating in the middle of weighing something. Looking for a higher quality scale. This is my second cheap digital scale.

PNW

It sounds like you may have gotten a "lemon". I've had mine for over a year and have experienced no problems. In fact, I just ordered another for a b/d present to my grandaughter. Art

I just wanted to put in my 2 cents. I got a Cuisinart 11 cup model about a year ago and don't know that i have used my kitchen aid stand mixer for pizza dough since. Mine came with a DVD where they had a guy go over making dough with the dough blade and setting. In the video, he combines all of his dry ingredients in the food processor, starts it and then slowly adds his wet ingredients with the processor running. Once he has added all wet components, he gives it 45 seconds. I have done this on every batch and it works perfectly for me including proper dough temperature. Just my input.

Hey guys, just wanted to say THANKS! I adjusted my recipe and made pizza's for friends and family last nite, and they turned out fantastic. Most of my problem came from kneading the dough prior to shaping. Last nite, I pulled the dough from the fridge and let it get to room temp for about an hour and a half, and then pulled the ball and shaped it. It was velvety airy and lite. It puffed up beautifully. I cooked 4 pizza's on my big green egg, everyone loved them. The favorite was feta cheese and spinach! Still have some tweaking, but I'm at least on the right path now.

Looks like I'm too late, but just in case this may be of help to other newbies (like myself).. I found a great video of Tom Lehmann pizza techniques.. (Tom is the bigger guy, not the guy who opens this video, just FYI) Note.. this video is part 3 of 3. You can easily find part 2 on Youtube, but I haven't been able to find part 1, but alas, this episode I'm posting is the one about stretching/forming/handling the dough. Everything he does is dead-on to all the techniques I've read about here on pizzamaking.com, but the visual helped me tremendously.. hope it helps others, too..